


Catch & Release

by anonymous_scapegoat



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Friendship, Gen, I love my space kids, Imprisonment, Meme, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, The Dream Team, also why can't i ever think of good titles jdfakl, lance and hunk are the smartest people pidge knows and i will Fight u on this, oh yeah!!!, their friendship means so much to me!!!!!! i need more content!!!, this is so dorky but i love them i'm sorry i'm like this, what else do i tag this as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 22:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9924476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymous_scapegoat/pseuds/anonymous_scapegoat
Summary: Some Galra grunt makes the mistake of putting Pidge and Lance in the same cell. It goes about as well as you'd expect.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is based on a hc by ironinkpen over on tumblr !! ^^ she's super cool go check her out~
> 
> the rating is literally just b/c pidge and lance have the worst language in the World - actually it's mostly pidge, but ^^"

Lance groans as he sits up, feeling for all the world as though a flurry of many things has just stopped happening, as if someone just turned off the TV, leaving dead silence and the memory of some great chaos in its wake.

His head feels wobbly, like it did the one time his older cousin sat him on the park’s merry go round and spun him until Lance could hardly even see. Everything is vaguely blurry, although that’s clearing up the more he blinks, and his mouth feels like he’s been chewing cotton - it tastes like gunpowder, he thinks, although he’s never put gunpowder in his mouth just for the hell of it.

As his vision clears, he takes in his surroundings. Dingy, mystery metal walls, moist with something of which Lance does not want to know the origin. Bolts holding the floor under his hands together as he pushes himself into a more comfortable position. Bars over the only opening of the entire dismal enclosure, and through those bars, a sick, familiar purple glow. Pidge to his left, unconscious- wait.

“Pidge?” Lance asks, wincing at how loud his voice bounces back at him. He’s definitely in a Galra prison, and the more he listens he can hear shuffles and moans coming from what he can only assume are other cells. There’s probably a reason no one’s making any more noise than that.

He nudges Pidge gently with his foot - his arms are still wobbling from whatever drug must have knocked him out and he doesn’t really trust himself to stay upright without support from both - but they don’t move.

They’re much smaller than he is, though. Any drugs in their system would be more potent and longer-lasting. He’s just going to have to wait it out. Basically alone. In enemy territory. Cool. Sure.

As he waits his mind wanders. How did they even get here? He remembers - distinctly - the flashes of light that imply fighting in their lions. Then the deep-bad-icky silent vibrations that mean that his lion cut through the hull of another ship - Galra, obviously - then the same purple he’s surrounded by now, meaning he was inside the ship at some point. A voice - “ _kill them_ ” - they’re obviously not dead, so that’s a bust - sharp pain in his right shoulder - still there, he notices, flexing his arms, _ow_ \- darkness. Fun times all around.

Pidge still hasn’t woken up. His brain isn’t coughing up any more details about the origins of their steaming-pile-of-garbage situation. So he listens to the shuffling, groaning people outside. Listens to the footsteps of a sentry walking past at regular intervals. Listens, listens, until suddenly-

“Fucking hell,” Pidge moans, rolling onto their side and curling into a ball. They make another unintelligible noise and drag their hands down their face, fingers limp and imprecise. They’re not wearing their glasses, and their helmet’s been taken away - Lance is only 75% sure they can still see.

“Language,” he admonishes softly.

Pidge freezes. They’re quick, Lance knows, they can hear the shifting misery outside, smell incarceration in the floor panels, now that they’re looking for it.

“What is going on, and do I need to kill anything within the next twenty-five seconds,” Pidge says. They say it like they’re not asking a question, like they’re ready to rip someone’s head off.

“There’s no one here to kill but me, so hopefully not.” Lance smiles sideways, crooked, more habit than amusement. “We’re prisoners.”

Pidge sighs. They flop onto their back, amber eyes wide and staring up at him. They’re widened in what could only be described as exasperation. Pidge feels inconvenienced by this. Pidge comes across less “we are in mortal peril” and more “I sure wish my cat would stop sleeping on the clothes I left out for tomorrow.”

Pidge asks, “Again?”

“Third time this cycle,” Lance snickers, hears Pidge do the same. “Is that some kind of record?”

“Hunk is the one keeping the books, but it sure sounds like it.”

“Not to toot our own horn, but we’re getting good at this.” Lance grabs at an imaginary steering wheel in front of him, taps the heel of his palm against its center.

“Beep, beep,” Pidge agrees.

It’s come back in bits and pieces, but Lance remembers now. They’d gotten caught on purpose. Since Shiro disappeared, they’ve been unable to form Voltron (Allura is trying, of course, but until they clock some _serious_ group training hours - something Lotor, Zarkon’s son and heir, has made difficult - she’s much more useful at the helm of the castle, and they're all more useful in their own lions). So instead they’ve been hitting outposts, infiltrating through voluntary (but not _too_ voluntary, it’s gotta look good) capture, freeing prisoners, and dismantling ships.

It’s slow work, but it helps morale to feel like they’re doing something. They’ve even got a scoreboard of sorts running for things like most imprisonments and quickest escapes, with bonus points for more densely manned ships, more difficult situations, and, of course, style.

Lance and Pidge have quickly proven themselves to be the most effective duo (the addition of Hunk makes them damn near unstoppable, but it’s hard to coordinate three simultaneous “accidental” captures, so it’s just the two of them usually). They complement each other. Pidge is a melee fighter, while Lance is much more valuable at long distance; each tends to stop and think where the other wants to charge ahead; Pidge can talk theory, but Lance can translate that to real-world applications; their brains move at roughly the speed of sound, and the only ones that doesn’t disorient are each other.

“The drugs are new, though,” Lance mutters thoughtfully. “They’ll definitely add some time.”

“They _are_ a nice touch,” Pidge responds, wincing as they sit up and roll their shoulders back. “But we’ll get bonus points for unfamiliar and extenuating circumstances.”

“Right you are.” Lance grins again. There’s bite to it - morbid thrill. “So what’s the plan, Pigeon?”

Lance can’t help it if his knee starts jiggling with anticipation when Pidge grins right back.

 

\----

 

In the end it takes them three hours, forty-six minutes, and seventeen seconds to escape once they’re conscious. The time is subpar, but it certainly is one of their more spectacular jailbreaks.

It goes as follows:

 

 **Approximately 30 minutes, 28 seconds after waking:** Lance begins to sing. The song is “Toxic” by Britney Spears. He has made it into a ballad. It is loud, and pitchy, and awful.

 

 **Approximately 30 minutes, 49 seconds after waking:** Pidge’s eyes begin to water. Lance’s voice can be truly horrifying when he wants it to be.

 

**Approximately 41 minutes, 17 seconds after waking (a.w.):**

Lance’s voice has gone scratchy. This does not detract from the pain it appears to be causing Pidge, who has been conducting various rudimentary tests on the materials making up the cell walls with a grimace. The footsteps of the guard grow nearer and stop right in front of their cell, blocking parts of the purple light.

“ _Hey, you_ ,” the guard barks.

Lance does not respond; he summons tears to his eyes to add to the mournful effect. Pidge does not respond; they continue sniffing a rusted patch of the floor.

“You- green one,” the guard tries again. “What is he _doing_?”

Pidge sits up slowly, scratching their head with an expression of intense confusion. Their eyes are wide and childlike and sincere as they say, “He is grieving, sir.”

The guard seems to need a moment to process this. He pauses before speaking again.

“Grieving?”

“This is a traditional Earth song of mourning,” Pidge says earnestly as Lance collapses to the floor, dramatically reaching for the doors with a grasping, desperate hand. They nudge him slightly with their foot, with a muttered, “ _Tone it down a little, would you?_ ”

“Mourning,” the guard says.

“Don’t you hear the lyrics?” Pidge asks, one eyebrow raised like they can’t believe the guard is so dense as to believe that “Toxic” by Britney Spears is not the saddest damn thing he’s ever heard.

Lance at this point begins to slur his voice with sobs to cover up “with a taste of your poison paradise” three octaves down at half speed.

“Can you _please_ make him stop?” the guard asks, desperate.

Pidge looks affronted. “You don't- you don't just _interrupt someone's mourning ritual!_ At least, not without a gift.”

“Well… What is he mourning?”

“His _freedom_ ? His _family_ ?” Pidge is concerningly good at playing the slighted observant. “He may never see them again you _insensitive piece of_ -”

Lance cuts them off with a particularly enthusiastic bout of wailing, having moved on to the second verse.

“And there's no way to get him to stop,” the guard clarifies.

“Not without a ceremonial gift, anyway,” Pidge answers, setting their jaw and looking derisively towards the back of the cell, as though any “gift” this soldier could offer would in no way assuage the grief of the poor boy next to them singing his funeral dirges.

“What kind of gift?”

Lance marvels at his own vocal ability.

“Well…” Pidge strokes their chin, the very picture of a mourning earthling deep in thought. They then proceed to rattle off several rare alloys, two different types of screwdrivers, some basic circuit boards, and food dye, plus a couple of things that don’t even exist, with zero hesitation. “Oh, and a bunsen burner, if you don’t mind, sir.”

“I… What?”

“It’s to build his Grief Conduit,” Pidge explains, as if speaking to a very young child. “To siphon his sadness into a separate being. It’s a sacred ritual.”

Lance disguises a snort with a very dramatic hiccup.

“Is this _really_ necessary?” the guard mutters.

Lance wails with renewed vigor, taking “Toxic” from the top for the third time.

Pidge levels the guard with a look that clearly says, “what do _you_ think?”

 

**Approximately 1 hour, 33 minutes, 51 seconds a.w.:**

Lance has stopped his howling. He and Pidge are sitting back to back, Lance facing the bars, surrounded by various rare alloys, two types of screwdrivers, some basic circuit boards, and food dye, as well as a few items neither of them recognizes, one of which turns out to be a bunsen burner.

Lance puts on a good show, vigorously banging a screwdriver against a piece of metal and muttering the name of every Pokemon he can remember under his breath as he “shapes” his Grief Conduit. Behind him, Pidge is making a bomb.

 

**Approximately 1 hour, 55 minutes, 22 seconds a.w.:**

“So, uh… ETA?” Lance mutters. He’d offer to help, but knows better. Lance is a smart guy and he knows it, but sometimes you’ve just gotta let your resident fifteen-year-old genius do their thing.

“Listen, I’m doing my best,” Pidge mutters back. “It doesn’t help that I’ve had to react oxidized metals in whatever the hell is dripping down these walls to even get the precipitates I need for this to actually go _boom_.”

“You know that outright asking for explosive materials would’ve been a massive red flag.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t make me _happy_ about it.”

 

**Approximately 2 hours, 17 minutes, 37 seconds a.w.:**

“Okay, Lance, you’re better with physics than I am. Assuming this erupts straight up like it’s supposed to-”

“ _With my mournful emotions!!!_ Continue.”

“-we need to place it at just the angle that’ll blow the ceiling along with the bars.”

“ _Oh, my freedom!! Lost to the cruel winds of fate!_ To compromise the structural integrity, right.”

“ _There, there, my poor and shattered companion._ Find us a sweet spot?”

“ _There is no sweetness left to this dismal existence!! Oh Grief Conduit, sluice away my agony!_ I’m on it.”

 

**Approximately 2 hours, 18 minutes, 42 seconds a.w.:**

“ _Did you see that?_ ” Pidge is jumping for joy, practically, eyes sparkling at the utterly destroyed, bright-green-spattered opening to their cell.

“ _Hell yeah_ , I did!” Lance reaches for a high five and bumps hips with his partner in intergalactic crime. “I see now what the food dye was for - I like it.”

They step gingerly through the sizzling remains of the bars and turn towards their guard, who is sprawled on the floor, looking shocked even while unconscious and soaked in mystery liquid dyed varying hues.

“I’m just glad it worked - I’ve never made a bomb before!”

Pidge is still shining, glee written into every movement, and Lance hates to kill the mood, but-

“Time to free some prisoners?”

“Always.”

 

**Approximately 2 hours, 48 minutes, 17 seconds a.w.:**

“ _Still alive on your end?_ ” Pidge’s voice floats through the comms unit in Lance’s recently recovered helmet.

Lance grunts as he kicks back another Galra soldier, shoots a hole through another drone. He hears Pidge’s labored breathing in his ear, slowing only slightly as they reach the bridge of the ship and hook up to the computers, hears them pointing straggling prisoners in the direction of the escape pods.

“Never better!”

 

**Approximately 3 hours, 1 minute, 22 seconds a.w.:**

“ _Shutting down security measures and sending your lion’s coordinates now_.”

“I’ll meet you on the way, then.”

 

**Approximately 3 hours, 12 minutes, 37 seconds a.w.:**

“There’s, ah- more of them than I thought,” Pidge says with mild surprise.

They are favoring their left leg, having been caught deep in the calf by a lucky bot.

“Yeah, just- just a few,” Lance replies lightly.

He is shooting one-handed, can feel bruises working their way down his right arm - the soldier that tackled him wasn’t lucky, she was just _big_.

Looking out over the veritable sea of robots between the two of them and their lions, sitting right next to each other and tantalizingly close, Lance doesn’t foresee this ending well for either of them.

“Any ideas?”

 

**Approximately 3 hours, 20 minutes, 44 seconds a.w.:**

“Well, this is cozy.”

“Just be glad I even noticed the vents above our lions.”

“Hey, I’m not complaining - I’d take the air ducts over that horde any day.”

“Yeah, cuz you're, like, three feet tall.”

“Fuck off, Lance.”

 

**Approximately 3 hours, 32 minutes, 52 seconds a.w.:**

“Lance, I don't want to worry you…”

“Oh my god.”

“We may be a little lost.”

“Define ‘a little lost.’”

Pidge turns around as far as they can in the cramped duct, makes a vague, noncommittal hand gesture and shrugs. They then turn back forward and continue crawling.

“Pidge, oh my god.”

 

**Approximately 3 hours, 45 minutes, 11 seconds a.w.:**

Pidge kicks the grate out from under them, immediately dropping both themself and Lance onto the head of the blue lion. Lance clambers down into Blue’s mouth as Pidge jumps the gap to Green.

“ _Good to go?_ ” Pidge’s voice fills Blue’s cockpit. Lance breathes a sigh of relief - sweet, sweet freedom. Finally.

“Let’s bounce,” he grins, crooked and sideways and joyful because he doesn't know how else to be with another victory in his pocket.

 

**Approximately 3 hours, 46 minutes, 17 seconds a.w.:**

Lance feels as though he has just been freed from some great silence - as though he was suspended in time but someone has now hit play again and the inside of his brain is made of lightning and cold metal and stars, so many stars as he hurtles through open space again, Pidge right beside him.

The Galra ship is nothing but rubble and space dust behind them. The explosion they caused had been beautiful, and Lance had pretended not to notice Pidge getting choked up over the comms.

Later, Allura will tell them that they should never have been on that ship. That it was one of the most heavily guarded warships currently patrolling on this end of the universe. But for now - they are _definitely_ leading on the scoreboard.


End file.
